Sam Altman:
A lot of people want local inference, and somehow they assume that the problem is solved now because we have open-source models, we’re going to be able to run them on our computers, and so we’re not going to need all the stuff in the data center.
But from a global allocation perspective, actually it’s quite terrible to have everybody, like, have a bunch of the world’s limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer and being used five percent of the time.
Like you want maximum utilisation in the cloud if you’re trying to deal with this very supply-constrained environment,
And somehow many people’s intuition is the opposite of that
TL;DR Guy selling product: “Here’s why owning your own product instead of renting it from me is a terrible idea”
letting sam altman (or billionaires for that matter) have all the money from our work is a poor allocation of resources.
This fucking guy needs to suck a tailpipe
McDonald’s can probably make hamburgers more efficiently than everyone can at home, but I’m not eating that shit any more than I’m giving Sam Altman my money or data.
Oh damn! Now there’s an analogy!
McDonald’s does but its still more expensive than making hamburgers at home, why?
Because profit motive is an inefficiency.
Profit motive is also a misallocation of limited resources. Regular soup kitchens can feed hundreds of people at the cost of only a few dollars per portion. The only advantage they have is buying wholesale. Imagine spawning out of thin air a nonprofit with the vertical integration and logistics of McDonalds. How many people could it feed for next to nothing?
Funny how there weren’t any systemic supply issues until someone decided to buy up all the RAM …
I was going to say that with swearing and all caps, thank you for keeping it classy.
Your parents didn’t waste money on an avacado toast addiction, and THEY have a RAM.
And who made those resources scarce, Sam? WHO MADE THEM SCARCE???
also screw you for trying to make the answer to ‘How should those resources be allocated?’ be ‘In the way that best enriches me personally’.
It kind of blows my mind how our society is set up to give the most power to the worst people.
I think it has to be with the way all the media channels ( controlled by the rich in power) essential brainwash people into not acting. Money and capitalism slowly corrupted the process of democracy and will see after Nov 3 if there is away to hold the rich in check.
A lot of people want to be billionaires, and somehow they assume the problem is solved because we have unfettered predatory late stage capitalism and oligarchy in America, we’re going to be able to amass as much money as we want in our bank accounts, and so we’re all going to be rich without oversight, accountability or government interference.
But from a global allocation perspective, actually it’s quite terrible to have everybody, like, have a bunch of the world’s wealth sitting in a few private bank accounts and being used .05% of the time.
Like you want maximum circulation of currency if you’re trying to reduce inequality in this artificial scarcity environment,
And somehow, Americans’ intuitions are the opposite of that.
FTFY Sam.
This is genuinely a fantastic response that is also absolutely correct in its premise
Except that most of their “money” is parts of the company, it “works”. It only gets dangerous, if the economy is bad and people keep their (real) money, accelerating it further.
I was just going to leave it at “funny, I’d say the same thing about billionaires,” but this is more through.
Funny because it’s true
Fighting so hard not to make an edit about raping sisters, but that might be too degenerate for me
Sam Altman is an example of a terrible allocation of resources. Think of how much oxygen and dihydrogen monoxide he consumes? And for what? He just needlessly produces carbon dioxide in record amounts. The elementary particles that make up the sack of biotic matter that calls itself Samuel would be better suited for other applications. Agriculture comes to mind.
Altman existing is a terrible waste of resources
Sam Altman is a terrible utilization of scarce resources.
I want to use ram for things unrelated to AI you fucking prick.
It wasn’t even scarce before them.
Sam Altman is
aterribleutilization of scarce resources.
Personal computers are a ridiculous idea, you should use our scalable mainframes instead --IBM in the 80s, probably
There’s certainly nothing enjoyable to do on an AS400
As someone that makes use of an AS400 (well i series), I can confirm that there is no fun to be had.
I haven’t seen the real thing in almost 30 years, but the company I work for uses the emulation and it has no noticeable improvements.
Crazy as it is. you can still get the (slightly modernized) hardware. IBM just makes too much money to stop supporting it.
Wow, that’s awful
Pissing on an AS400 is kinda fun, especially if it’s running and not backed up
Just be careful not to piss on any high-voltage components.
There was famously a guy who’s said that the world needs like five or so computers. But that was when each computer took a whole room.
Don’t fucking talk to me about scarce resources, billionaire.
A lot of people want local inference, and somehow they assume that the problem is solved now because we have open-source models, we’re going to be able to run them on our computers, and so we’re not going to need all the stuff in the data center.
We don’t need them even without local inference. There was already more than enough total global compute for the most valuable use cases of LLMs (research, development, admin). The datacenter build-up is almost entirely fueled by utterly unrealistic expectations of future capabilities. Before and now the case for local inference is a matter of access, not capacity.
But from a global allocation perspective, actually it’s quite terrible to have everybody, like, have a bunch of the world’s limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer and being used five percent of the time.
Utilitarianism like this is a disease. By the same logic, it’s inefficient that we allow other species of animals to exist and consume usable energy. Hell, why stop at other species? It’s inefficient to allow humans to exist - let’s kill all humans!
Now, I know that’s not what he said, the point was to show that when someone uses utilitarianism as a serious argument, they are no longer worth listening to.
Like you want maximum utilisation in the cloud if you’re trying to deal with this very supply-constrained environment,
The supply is only constrained because you keep hoarding more than you need. Maybe it’s time for some communization? So communities where data centers are built get most if not all of the profits from it?
It’s inefficient to allow humans to exist - let’s kill all humans!
That’s already where his mind is at: https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/02/23/altman-you-think-ai-is-wasted-energy-try-raising-a-human/4181781
Well the less humans that are kept happy by having enough ram to do stuff the more unhappy humans looking for someone to blame there are… But yeah what’s the point in anything if there’s nobody there?
At this point - especially with this commentary - the datacenter build-up seems like market manipulation. Like how hyper-scaling keeps competition scarce.
That’s insanely ironic coming from him. Meanwhile the crazy amount of waste that these companies are producing buying all the GPUs to create artificial scarcity. They are terrified of people being able to run their own local LLMs because it completely destroyed their entire business model, they will never be profitable.
Please don’t run AI for free on your own workstation 😭 it’s a very bad use of your computer 😥
OpenAI is realizing they might be in trouble
new title:
“Man whose company lost $20b in previous year explains how to allocate resources.”
